Preview: Magic the Gathering – Planechase

While at GenCon this year I got to sit down and play a preview game of the new Magic the Gathering variation called Planechase that Wizards of the Coast is releasing tomorrow (September 4th).  My personal history with Magic starts around 1995 at the beginning of 4th Edition when I played very frequently up until they started churning out more regular expansions.  The last one I remember really getting cards from and playing with was Tempest but really Mirage, Visions, and Weatherlight were the last sets I played.  Since then many of us here have taken to playing regular booster draft tournaments every year or so just for fun, but what this also lets us do is see where the game has gone and what’s new with Magic without much of an investment.  What has happened in the last few months though comes as a huge surprise to me, I’ve actually started playing Magic again every now and then due to a few friends who have been into it for a while.  I’m still not thrilled about the frequency that new cards are being produced, there’s just too much to keep up with for me, but the core of the game is still really entertaining and a game that I really enjoy.  All of this is a long way of telling you why I really wanted to check out Planechase and see what WotC is doing with the game aside from the regular expansions.

I sat down to a table of four players each with a pre-constructed standard magic deck used for the demo as well as a stack of larger cards known as planes for each player.  Overall the game played out in a very fun and interesting way, but instantly I felt like luck is a much larger factor in the game which as a consequences downplays deck construction somewhat.  The way the plane cards interact with each particular deck is very intriguing but many of the turning points of the game came down to a roll of a die or a single lucky draw at a particular time.  I think Planechase is a very fun and interesting way to change up the game and make multiplayer games a lot more interesting, but I have some concerns about balance between the cards and a seemingly reckless nature of how the game plays out.  That said, I think if you’re a veteran Magic player this variation brings a new level of play for you to enjoy and if you haven’t played Magic in a long time Planechase feels like a new take on the classic game with the twist of some plane cards that let you do completely ridiculous combinations!

The basics of the game are exactly the same as any other MtG game, except that there is always one plane in play that drastically changes one or more aspects of the game.  The current plane moves from player to player always effecting the active player, and each plane card has a constant effect that changes how the players turn will play out and a chaos effect that can be activated by rolling a six-sided planar die (one chaos side, one planeswalker side, and four blank sides).  Each player gets a free roll of the planar die on their turn, but you can pay 1 mana to roll a second time, 2 mana to roll a third, three mana for a fourth, and so on which adds an weird gambling edge to the game where you debate how much mana to spend on rolls that may or may not get you some benefit.  A further risk or reward is that if the planeswalker symbol is rolled then the current plane is returned to its owner and the active player draws their top plane card which then becomes the active plane that each player uses.  The pre-constructed decks that come with Planechase are designed for unique and creative interactions between the decks and the plane cards, but in the demo game I did not notice any player having a distinct advantage when their plane was active versus another player’s.  In general it seems that all of the planes are useful in some way to each player.

Several of the plane cards seemed like they were either extremely crippling with a chance of a great reward, or completely over the top powers with a chance of backlash.  One of the planes skipped the active player’s untap phase, but if you managed to roll and activate its chaos effect (a 1 in 6 chance) all of your cards would untap.  If played well and with a lucky roll, you could end up playing several turns in a row simply by untapping all of your cards but at the same time some players are getting skipped entirely as their cards don’t untap and they fail to roll well.  The plane that ended the game I was playing was a mirrored landscape which caused a spell that targets something to target ALL somethings in the game that it could target, this ended the game because that meant a lightning bolt would target every creature and player in the game which simply resulted in too much damage and healing happening for each player to recover from once it started.  What ended the game was a spell that ressurects a creature from one graveyard, instead ressurecting EVERY creature in every graveyard which meant one massive army of our cards for that player.  This was a bit of a disappointing end for a 4-player demo game, but I can see in a group with friends where we can simply pick up and play again this would be a really fun regular occurence.

Wizards of the Coast describes Planechase as “multiplayer mayhem”, which is an extremely appropriate definition for the game.  If your idea of a fun game of Magic doesn’t include more random factors and unpredictable results, then Planechase probably isn’t for you.  If you find yourself becoming bored with some aspects of Magic the Gathering, especially games with more than two players or if you simply want more excitement in your games every now and then, I think Planechase is definitely something you should try out.  The first release for the game includes four pre-constructed decks called Elemental Thunder, Metallic Dreams, Strike Force, and Zombie Empire that come with a selection of 10 new plane cards and a 60 card deck consisting of Magic cards from a selection of sets.